Looking for a new place to eat near the hotel where I stay most of the times when I'm in Chicago, I found a place on line in nearby Park Ridge that I was not familiar with. Holt's is in a space at the corner of Summit and Prospect in downtown Park Ridge (see map) that used to house a former men's wear shop and was the first restaurant owned by Park Ridge native and resident Matt Ranalli. Along with managing partners Brad Doyle and Grant Blaszynski, the group opened Holt's in October of 2015 offering sandwiches, pizza, and a lengthy craft beer menu. I thought it sounded interesting enough to me to go find it and check it out for dinner.
I was able to find parking just down the street on Prospect and walked into Holt's around 7:30 that evening. They had a nice patio area that appeared to be able to seat about 30 people, but it was chilly out and they weren't serving patrons out there that evening.
Inside Holt's I found a nice contemporary decorated space that featured a long dual banquette seat in the middle of the restaurant with tables on either side. (I thoroughly despise banquette seating.) There were also larger tables off to the side for communal dining (I probably hate communal dining even more) or for large groups. There was also outside dining, albeit in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the place. It was a nice night and there were people seated outside enjoying the fall evening. The hostess at the front stand was a young lady who was too interested as to what was going on with her smart phone than to greet me when I came in, so I just took a seat at the bar.
The bar was also modern and very nice. It featured high-back padded seats along a long wooden bar with contemporary lighting hanging from the ceiling. Large flat paneled televisions were hanging along the back bar area and there was a lot of contemporary country music playing in the background in the restaurant.
One of the bartenders gave me a food menu and a beer menu. They had about a dozen beers on tap - all of them locally-brewed craft beers - and over 40 beers, ciders and meads available in bottles. I immediately ordered up a 3 Floyd's Spaceship Middle Finger American Pale Ale. She looked at me funny and said, "We don't have that."
I turned the beer menu that she had given me toward her, pointed to it and said, "It's right here."
She studied it for a moment and said, "Oh! That's the old beer list. Sorry about that." She took that one back and came back with another beer list. This time I ordered the 3 Floyd's Necron 99 India Pale Ale. I studied the beer menu as time went on and noticed that they had the Solemn Oath Lü, a nice Kolsch that I've had before. While I did like the Necron 99, I got the Lü for my second beer. I love a good Kolsch and the Solemn Oath Lü is definitely a good one.
The food menu wasn't all that long and didn't seem to be very creative. They had a number of appetizers - things like chicken wings, cheese curds, and calamari. They had a couple of burgers on the menu, an egg and pepper sandwich, a salmon BLT, and even a Sloppy Joe. There were a number of salads available, but the main focus seemed to be on pizza. They had a handful of specialty pizzas including a sausage and mashed potato pizza, a pizza topped with goat cheese and sliced grapes, and an Italian beef and giardiniera pizza. You could also dial up your own combinations of pizza including over a dozen toppings and three different types of cheese.
But I wasn't all that hungry that evening and none of the sandwiches sounded all that appetizing to me. I wandered back to the appetizer part of the menu and found that they had a mac & cheese appetizer that featured three different types of cheese (gouda, white cheddar and Monterrey Jack) where you could add bacon and/or crab meat for an upcharge. But that even sounded too filling for me, so I ended up getting something lighter - the fish tacos.
The fish tacos were made with grilled Alaskan cod that went with chopped red and green cabbage, pickled red onions, and a chipotle mayo sauce all mixed in flour taco shells. The tacos were good - not great - but they were fine for what I needed that evening. The cod wasn't fishy in taste, the cabbage was crisp, the pickled onions gave the tacos a nice balance, and the chipotle mayo sort of tied everything together nicely with a bit of smoky and spicy flavor. It was the perfect amount of food on an evening when I really didn't need a lot of food, but I needed something.
I'll have to say that Holt's is a nice place and they had a pretty good selection of craft beers - as long as you get the current beer menu rather than the old one that was initially presented to me. The food menu isn't all that extensive and I did see one of their pizzas later in the evening that piqued my interest as it looked pretty good - thin, misshapen crust with plenty of toppings. Other than the uninterested young lady at the hostess stand, the service was also pretty good. Holt's seems to be more of a place for groups rather than a single diner, but I think I'd go back again at some point.
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